Dinomorphs Three: Exodus
by Gryphinwyrm7
Summary: Melissa Chapman...What happened to her after the Yeerk War? Imbued with the morphing technology by the Yeerks, she sought escape from her life by going around the world and acquiring rare animals...But she never acquired what she really wanted. Now she's trapped on a dangerous planet, with only sea monsters and evil mutant space viruses for company.
1. Ammonite

Chapter One

My name is Melissa Chapman. And I was plummeting to the earth at 900 Miles per hour. Typical Tuesday.

Okay, maybe not so typical. I had just been covered in transparent gelatin that I could breathe, and launched from a green spaceship that was shaped like Snoopy.

Huh. I never realized just how weird my life has become since the end of the Yeerk War until I say it out loud.

It wasn't the first time I'd been falling from the sky with no parachute, though. Six months ago I went skydiving for a charity event. None of the skydivers wore parachutes, and we all morphed into birds on the way down. It was a neat experience.

Nate, my boyfriend at the time, was an _Estreen_ and did some very neat stuff with his Great Blue Heron morph on the way down.

I figured if I was falling at breakneck speeds towards the planet, then I could repeat the events of that charity. I focused my mind on the image of the bird whose DNA was stored within me. The Snowy Owl.

My bones began to get lighter, and my lips began to purse out into a beak…

And suddenly I couldn't breathe…It was as if the gel in my lungs, which I had somehow been breathing before, no longer was breathable. I was choking, asphyxiating.

I reached up to my throat with my half-wings-half-hands, trying to clear an airway.

I started reversing the morph, going back to human, as my bird-like features vanished, I found myself able to breathe again. I coughed a few times to be sure.

I glanced down at the rapidly enlarging planet beneath me. There was a continent, and a large plateau on that continent…And as I fell closer and closer…I missed the continent entirely.

I tumbled past the plateau, through a massive swarm of squawking seagull-like creatures. Down the Cliffside that seemed to go on forever…

Until I hit the ocean. The gel rippled when it hit, and then burst apart into water, and suddenly, my lungs were filled with water, and I was sinking further under water.

Tumbling through the inky blackness, unable to see, I saw a large creature launch past me, as I frantically kicked towards the surface.

I broke the surface and upchucked the water in my lungs, sucking in a very deep breath before spotting the creature that had surfaced alongside me. It looked sort of like some sort of reptilian dolphin. It gave me a scared look, before a second creature, something that looked like a massive, and I'm talking _massive as in size of a humpback whale massive_ shark surged out of the water and gobbled up the scaly dolphin in two bites, before ducking back below the surface.

I could see land not far away. An island maybe 400 feet long, with a grove of trees and little else. I could probably swim to it…If I could swim. I was never a good swimmer. After gaining the power to morph, I just figured if I needed to swim, I'd acquire something that could swim naturally.

Only I never did. Eight ultra-rare, super awesome DNA patterns within my blood, and none of them were swimmers.

_Wait_, not _none _of them. I focused my mind on the Alligator within me.

It was a Leucistic American Alligator, collected from a farm in Florida. I had arranged for a similar gator to be shipped up to St. Louis from New Orleans as a part of a deal with War-Prince Escafil a few weeks ago. Now that was a lifetime ago.

Leucistic Alligators don't survive long in the wild. Their white scales and blue eyes stand out in the swamps, and so they get eaten by predators before they can get big enough to defend themselves.

As my legs shriveled up, and my tail formed, this fear was on my mind as well. That shark was _big_. I was lunch if I didn't get to that island. I began swimming, my legs and tail paddling me forward…But forward slowly…Too slowly. And the saltwater burned at my skin…Alligators prefer freshwater. Swamps and rivers are their preferred habitat. I was not comfortable in the sea.

I felt sand beneath my claws, and surged out of the water, demorphing as I did…Becoming human, and scrambling to the island shore.

I looked back and saw a massive triangle, as big as a sail, slicing through the water before ducking beneath it. The dorsal fin of that mega-shark.

One thing was for sure…Alligator was out.

I slumped backwards onto the sand of my small island. _Was that even a shark?_ I wondered. It was an alien planet. Or it was supposed to be. Erica had said in orbit that the DNA on the planet was registering as earth-based DNA. Could that have been an earth shark?

No…Impossible…No earth shark grows that big. Even the Whale Shark isn't nearly that big.

I suddenly felt a sharp pain in my arm and sat up, pulling my left arm into view.

A small squid-like creature had latched onto my arm. It had a spiral shell, like a nautilus, but its tentacles had wrapped around my arm. I noticed a few more of these spiral shells all along the beach.

I focused my mind on the one that was on my arm. Its tentacles relaxed as it's DNA passed into my body.

I pealed the creature off my arm, and flung the shell, no bigger than a plate, into the water.

I then stood up, digging my bare feet into the sand. This island was going to have to be my home now…For the next two weeks, anyway. Until the Pemalite ship crashed into the planet.

I definitely had my work cut out for me.


	2. Shipwrecked

Chapter Two

_"Dad," I said. "I don't understand what's happening." The world was going crazy. There was a tank on top of the rubble that used to be my house…Aliens were attacking the town…And I was scared…I had no idea what was going on. _

_ "Don't worry, honey," my dad said. "You'll understand very soon." _

_ He seemed to be twitching. Nervous. Like something inside him was fighting him. _

_ The car suddenly pulled over. _

_ "Dad?" I asked, frowning. "Where are we?"  
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_ My dad opened the card door, and suddenly I was grabbed by two gigantic dinosaurs. Dinosaurs covered in blades. _

_ "Dad!" I screamed. "DAD! HELP ME!" _

_ My father twitched again. Like he wanted to help, but something was holding him back. _

_ "It's open war now," my father said. "No choice anymore. I'm useless to the Visser I serve no purpose…And there is nothing that I, or your father can do to prevent this any longer." _

_ The dinosaurs shoved my head into what appeared to be a small hottub, I felt a drilling, burrowing sensation in my ear. _

_ (Hello, Melissa Chapman,) a voice I didn't recognize said in my head. (I've been waiting a very long time to meet you. Welcome to the Yeerk Empire.) _

It all started a few weeks ago. I had just finished up a season of _Morph Hunters_ a new show for Animal Planet. It featured me, and six other morph-capable humans in our 20s, traveling the world, acquiring rare animals, and morphing them for the benefit of people at home. The people who couldn't morph, but might get a kick out of extreme 20-somethings who could.

Yeah, _that_ kind of crowd. Not exactly unusual, given that morphing was by far the coolest thing that the Andalites brought. I mean, sure…Space travel was gonna be a thing now. We already had some small colonies on the moon and Mars.

We had trade relations with the Andalates, and we were starting to negotiate with Bajirarn and Leera. (Although I hear that the Leerans threw out the first delegation of negotiators. And then the second. Apparently Leerans now have an intense distrust of human politicians. Not sure I want to know what the psychic frogs saw in their heads that made them do that though.)

Anyway, I was at the wrap party, and we were discussing our former Yeerks (yeah, all the morphers on the show were ex-Controllers) and what they'd morphed into upon leaving us.

"My Yeerk wanted to be a horse," Nate was saying. "Apparently he'd infested one once, and he really enjoyed the experience. I mean…What the heck were the Yeerks thinking? Why were they infesting horses?"

"Don't know," Eliza said. "Don't wanna know. My Yeerk was a scientist. They were doing some seriously messed up shit during the war, you don't want to know. Trust me."

"What is your Yeerk now?"

"Somewhere in the Australian Outback," she said. "Turned into a cockatiel, never looked back."

"Melissa," one of the cameramen called out. "You've got a phone call."

I quietly excused myself and walked over to the holophone. A holographic image of an Andalite appeared over the phone.

"Prince Escafil," I said, grinning. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

(Hello, Melissa,) he said. The phone, one of the most advanced on the planet, was able to transmit Andalite Thought-Speech, which is why they'd introduced the technology. Our phones just couldn't do that.

I had met Prince Escafil earlier in the year, when I had been filming in Madagascar. We were both after the same lemur, and we played it up as an intense competition, a race between us for the cameras.

Which Escafil had been more than happy to go along with—He was one of the few Andalites who seemed to grasp the concept of drama—But in real life, he and his daughter were sweeties, and an animal doesn't mind being acquired more than once, so there was plenty of DNA to go around.

(Do you remember my daughter, Estreen?) He asked.

"Of course," I said. "She was a sweetheart."

(A Yeerk assassin attempted to kill her today,) Escafil said.

"Oh my God!" I said in surprise. I knew there were a few true Yeerks still around. Only the ones on earth had been given the morph-lock option. The rest were stuck as the same slimy slugs that they ever were.

"Is she okay?" I asked.

(She is fine,) he said. (A pair of young humans saved her life. Which is why I am calling you.)

"Yeah?" I asked.

(I have thanked them,) He said. (By granting them morphing technology. And they have requested something…Special…Something unique for a morph. As this is your specialty, I was hoping that you could help me provide that.)

"Oh I don't know," I said, frowning. "The new season of Morph Hunters is supposed to start filming in the next couple of days, and I'm supposed to go Colossal Squid Hunting, and it's gonna be a whole big thing…"

(I will compensate you, of course,) Escafil said.

"I'm not in this for the money, you know," I said. "It's the thrill of the morph. The buzz you get from acquiring DNA no one else has."

(We speak the same language,) Escafil said. (But I was not going to compensate you with currency.)

"You're looking for a rare DNA pattern," I said. "So obviously you're not offering me that."

(I invented the morphing technology,) Escafil said. (Do you really think that I have never stopped improving it?)

That caught my attention.

"Say what now?"

(I am offering you an upgrade in your morphing tech,) Escafil said. (Help assist me in the acquisition of a suitably rare morph, and I will increase your morphing time limit.)

"You can do that?" I asked. "I heard that you got it stretched to four hours."

(I did,) he said. (During my LAST upgrade. Since then, I have increased the entropic cascade delay to seven hours and forty-two minutes.)

"Seven hours!" I exclaimed in surprise.

(And forty-two minutes,) He repeated. (This latest upgrade is literally, the _latest_ upgrade. Only myself, Estreen, and the two humans who just saved her life have it.)

"And me," I said grinning. "I'm in…I think I even have a pretty good idea where to get the morph on such short notice. What's your budget?"

He told me, and I hung up, and then went back to the wrap party, where I flagged down my ex-boyfriend, Nate. He was a morpher on the show, and we dated for a few months, but broke up when we realized that it was a really bad idea to date someone you work with. Even if, strictly speaking, we didn't film together or anything. It was an amicable break-up.

"Hey Nate!" I said sidling up to him. "You still got that contact at the Aquarium of the Americas in New Orleans?"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Within hours, Escafil's credit had cleared, and I took an Andalite shuttle to New Orleans, where, we picked up a large, Leucistic American Alligator, drugged him, and transported him to St. Louis.

Escafil kept his word and upgraded my tech with a green box, which I was more than happy to test by flying around for three hours as a Snowy Owl.

That afternoon I met Estreen's rescuers, Jason and Emily. Cute couple. And clearly jazzed about morphing. Jason got the Alligator, and we played water tag in the pond that afternoon.

The gator was then returned to New Orleans, but I had never been to St. Louis before. The botanical gardens had a restaurant on site, so I had dinner there. Midway through dinner, a Yeerk Bug Fighter landed in the gardens…What looked like a sick Andalite was suddenly wheeled out.

Followed by two faces I hadn't seen since high school. Two of the faces that I hated the most in this Universe. Jake Berenson, and Marco Rodriguez. They had threatened my dad's life, in order to force the Chee, Erek, to do their bidding. I really hated their guts.

I knew about the Chee. One of the few non-Animorph humans who did. Erek came up to me after the war and personally apologized. We'd both been violated though. I despised Jake and Marco. Not just for the thing with my dad, though that was the biggie…But also because they _knew. _They had known the entire war…About my dad, about my dad's deal with Visser Three.

They KNEW I wasn't a Controller. They KNEW I had a reason to fight the Yeerks, but not once did they ever recruit me to fight, despite knowing I had a damn good reason to. Yeah, I knew about David Sanderson. Everyone knew about David Sanderson. But recruiting him was idiotic to begin with. They should have gone for me. They didn't. I was still pissed.

Rachel Berenson was even one of my best friends, or so I thought. Maybe if they had recruited me, she wouldn't be dead. But they didn't.

Now that Jake and Marco were here. My rage was returning. I was determined to find out _why. Why were Asshat #1 and Asshat #5 here? _

I scampered close…But not too close. I needed to spy on them. I lamented the fact that I had only used the morphing technology to acquire rare morphs as opposed to useful ones.

But I had done a shoot in India where I had acquired a rare Gooty's Tarantula. A tarantula native to a very small area of forest. I morphed it (Only for the second time.) and followed Jake, Marco, and Escafil into his lab.

There I ran into Jason and Emily, who had done the same thing, but morphed some kind of squirelly thing, and a bird.

And Escafil knew we were present the entire time. We demorphed, and he swore us to secrecy. A sentient virus was attempting to consume every living thing in the Universe. We left his lab. An hour later, Jason and Emily returned.

They had met a Chee, a Chee who had cure…A means of fighting this virus. They invited me to come, and I saw an opportunity. A chance…A chance to be more…A chance to fight. To be the Melissa Chapman who SHOULD have fought in the Yeerk War. But didn't.

I tagged along, along with an Andalite trapped in human morph (But granted reuse of the technology through Escafil's genius.)

And that's how I came to the planet of the Megasharks and Lizard-dolphins.

I could see the cliffs of the plateau in the distance. They dominated the eastern horizon. I couldn't even see to the top. I could see a massive swarm of small white…Bird…Ish…Things.

They looked sort of like white bats, really…Hairless bats. With dragon-tails, you know, with that diamond shaped club at the end?

The island I was on was not very big. About the length of a football field. It had a small grove of trees on it, and not much else. There were crabs (I think?) and small animals on the shoreline. Mostly those swirly-shelled cephalopods. They got washed ashore with the tides.

A few of the trees appeared to have fruits or nuts in them. Some combination of both? A frut?

I was eager to get off my little slice of paradise. `But I wasn't sure where I was going to go, or how I would get there. My Snowy Owl morph was my only bird, and while it was a wonderful morph…It was built for flying over tundra, not ocean…No way it could fly to the top of those cliffs. And the demon seagulls would probably attack it if I did anyway. Swarms of birds were mean…Even if these things weren't actually birds.

My only aquatic morphs were the alligator, and the spiral-shelled mollusk. I was pretty sure both would be lunch if I used them. I did notice a tidal pool nearby that might provide a good opportunity to test said mollusk later. If I felt so inclined. I had acquired it on impulse upon landing. It didn't seem particularly useful at the moment.

I picked up another near the shore. I wondered if the little squids were edible. I'd have to cook one to find out. Mollusks were always 50/50. Giant Squid meat, for example, is pretty much inedible. By humans anyway.

Frustratingly, NONE of my morphs seemed particularly useful. I had acquired them for their rarity, not their utility. I was getting very frustrated.

And hungry. I hadn't eaten today, and food was on my mind.

Tossing my new mollusk friend aside, I approached one of the frut trees, and attempted to climb it. I failed miserably.

I slumped to the bottom of the tree in defeat. I was hungry. But how was a tarantula or a Sumatran Rhinoceros supposed to help me get a small edible seed from a tree?

I blinked.

"Melissa Chapman!" I said, slapping my forehead. "You idiot…Use the Golden Bamboo Lemur morph."

Turns out I did have a utilitarian morph after all. Go figure.


	3. Elasmasaurus

Chapter Three

_We stood in line for what seemed like hours._

_ (I don't get what's so special about this technology,) I muttered to myself. _

_ (Andalite Morphing technology,) Iniss reveled. (It is the most amazing technology ever constructed. The ability to morph…To change your species…That is what is so special about it.) _

_ Iniss Four Five Five had been in my head for a little over a week now. The town was a mess, especially after the Animorphs had exploded the primary Yeerk pool. That had pissed more than a few people off. _

_ There was no hiding, no subterfuge as there had been during the time that I spent blissfully ignorant of what was happening. Humans and Human-Controllers were distinct, and if we could grab a stray human, and force them to become a controller, we would. Of course I had no say in the matter. I was a slave, a prisoner in my own mind. _

_ The Yeerks had been moving the Escafil device from location to location. Never keeping it in the same place for more than a day. They had risked much to capture it, and they weren't ever going to risk it falling back into the hands of the Animorphs. _

_ Animorph. Such a funny word. So strange that my classmates…My friends…Had been leading double lives. Secretly defending the planet from the Yeerks for almost three years now. _

_ Rachel Berenson…Supposedly one of my best friends. _

_ There was a line. A line of Controllers, like me. Iniss moved my body closer as the line got shorter. _

_ (At last…) she said. (I think I'm going to acquire a Cheetah first…Your planet has so many wonderful creatures.)_

I sucked water into my shell, and then shot it out at intense speeds. Jet propulsion. The mollusk moved via jet propulsion. My tentacles brushed the coral reef surrounding the island.

Vision was good…Too good almost. I could see why the mollusk stuck close to the shoreline. The reef formed some sort of barrier. It was too close to the surface of the water. The big predators didn't come too close, for fear of getting beached.

There was drop-off near the edge of the reef, and I could see the larger predators with ease. The ocean was teeming with them. Near the reef, however, the mollusks were the dominant predator, eating fish, clams, and small round crustacean like things.

I jetted back to the shore of my island, and the tide took me to the beach. I began to demorph, my arms and legs forming from four of my tentacles, and my hard, spiral shell retreating into my back.

Once I was fully demorphed, I meandered over to the reed hammock that I had made and flopped down.

I had been on this island for a week now, and was starting to feel somewhat trapped. I had some survival skills thanks to my time on _Morph Hunters_, so I wasn't starving to death, fortunately. The fruts had turned out be very good eating. Tasted sort of like pecan pie.

There were these durable reed-plants on the far end of my tiny domain, which I had woven into a hammock and fishing nets. My nets caught fish with almost too much ease…But it was expected, I think. They fish had no idea that the nets were a trap, and so got caught in them easily, especially when the nets had been baited with bits of the mollusk meat from those mollusks that had been washed ashore.

They were edible, but ultimately, not a lot of meat in them, and made for better bait to catch the real fish swimming nearby. Food wasn't an issue. Shelter was something I was somewhat concerned with, but there hadn't been any rain yet, so it was a future issue. I had been weaving a roof to string over the trees that I had hung my hammock in, but I didn't want to work on it now. It was very boring work, and frankly, I was still puzzling over the conundrum of my isolation. I was quite thoroughly trapped.

My snowy owl couldn't fly high enough or well enough to catch one of the demonic bats before they swarmed and attacked me. I tried to bait a net trap on land to catch one to acquire, but they seemed uninterested in anything I tempted them with.

My fire, which I had built after much hard work and swearing, was starting to die, so I tossed some more kindling on it. I had kept that fire going since I had started it, cooking my fish and mollusk on it. I wasn't about to let it go out, but I was starting to run out of dead wood. If I couldn't feed the fire, it might go out anyway.

I had to get off this island, but both the sea and the sky were blocked off by predators. It was quite frustrating. My lids grew heavy and my eyes flickered shut. When they opened again, it was late at night. My fire was almost out, and I swore under my breath, grabbing some kindling to get it going again.

The sky had only the one moon, right now, and half of it was lit up by the nearby nebula. The sky was breathtaking, no question of that.

That's when I heard the scraping sound. Something was digging in the sand. I stumbled out of my hammock, and saw it.

It was huge. Maybe the size of a rhino or a hippo, with a very long neck, and blue-green skin, mottled like sunlight at the bottom of a pool. Underwater camouflage. It reminded me of the Loch Ness Monster, actually.

It had come up to my island and was digging in the sand with its hind flippers. At first I thought maybe it had beached itself, and was trying to get back into the water, but as soon as it stopped digging, it placed it's rear over the hole it had made, and began to deposit large white spheres into the hole.

At first I thought it was pooping, honestly, but as my mind cleared, I realized that it was laying eggs. On land, like…Like an earth sea turtle or something. Most of its life was in the water…Only coming on land to lay eggs.

I moved forward as quickly and as quietly as I could. This was my ticket off the island. She turned and hissed at me, sensing my approach. She snapped at me with her long, flexible neck, but I deftly dodged it. I rolled over to her side and placed my hand on her leathery back.

She became calm as I acquired her DNA. Calmly standing up and walking away when I was done. When she came out of the trance, she seemed to forget that I was there, and went about her business of laying her eggs.

I flopped back onto my hammock, determined to get a full night's rest, because thanks to this midnight mother's visit…I was getting off the island in the morning.


	4. Spinosaurus

Chapter Four

_Iniss Four Five Five placed my hand on the blue cube. I felt a tingle of pleasure go down my spine. _I_ felt it, not Iniss. She could remember the sensation, having complete access to my memories and conscious mind, but the sensation of receiving the morphing was felt by me and not her. A subtle distinction, but a distinction nonetheless. _

_ (Only to be expected,) Iniss said. (The technology was indeed given to you, as my host. My DNA is not your DNA.) _

_ (Could I acquire you, then?) I asked. (We are technically touching.) _

_ (I…Do not know,) The Yeerk attempted to hide her discomfort from me. The thought definitely disturbed her. I chalked it up as a win. _

_ "Move along," The Hork-Bajir-Controller guarding the box said, almost bored. "Many more controllers to treat. _Gallifrashi, klorelx, _Keep moving." _

_ We turned and departed. I briefly considered acquiring Iniss's DNA. Maybe the trance I had heard about would weaken her control over my body. _

_ But the fact was…It would be pointless. Maybe I'd get temporary control of my body back…But once she was acquired, it would be over, and nothing would be different, except that she could morph my body into hers. Which…Would be creepy on a whole new level. _

_ (A Yeerk inside a Yeerk,) Iniss mused. (Yes…That is a little disturbing.) _

_ "Iniss Four Five Five," a cute boy I knew from school, named Nigel said, walking up to me. "That is your designation, correct?" _

_ "You are correct," Iniss said, using my mouth. "And you are…?" _

_ "Temrash Six-One-Six," he said. "I have a proposition for you, if you are interested." _

_ "Oh?" Iniss asked bored. _

_ "Once this planet is finally ours, the human hosts will be shipped off-world to fight in the Empire," He said casually. "And then we must begin to replenish the host numbers here." _

_ Iniss seemed quite bored by this conversation. _

_ "Yes," she said. "Breeding programs will begin as they did with the Taxxons and the Hork-Bajir. So?" _

_ "Human gestation takes longer than both Hork-Bajir and Taxxons," Temrash said with Nigel's mouth. "Nine months. And then the host will have to be matured. It will be a chore. The Empire will want us to get on that right away, and will reward those who start early." _

_ "Your point?" Iniss asked. _

_ "Breeding is more likely in genetically compatible humans if there is attraction," Temrash said. "This host body finds yours to be very attractive." _

Oh God, _I thought. _He's not asking what I think he is?

_ "As does mine," Iniss said. "Your proposition has merit. I will consider it." _

_ (Oh God, no,) I said. (Please no…Anything but that…Please…Please…I don't want my first time to be…Please…Please don't do that Iniss.) _

_ The Yeerk said nothing._

I waded into the ocean. I was more anxious about this morph than any I'd done before.

I knew that while I would be moving up the food chain from the small mollusk…That Mega-Shark out there…I was still going to be on it's menu.

My neck was the first thing to change. Stretching longer and longer, until I nearly toppled into the water from my buoyancy going all out of whack. My face stretched out in front of me, looking like a bullet. Special lenses appeared out of my eyelids. Like goggles, they would allow me to see in the water. My fingers began melting together, forming into flippers. My toes did the same, as my spine stretched forming a short stumpy tail that in conjunction with my hind fins would help me steer.

The mild that bubbled up underneath mine was as cool as a cucumber. About midway up the food chain, it wasn't afraid of a lot of predators, nor was it overwhelmingly hungry either.

I sucked in a deep breath, and then closed a sort of, valve in my throat. Holding my breath, I dove into the water. My second lenses closing, allowing my field of vision to clear, and see the world around me.

The water was bright and clear, like those images of the Caribbean you see in tourist brochures. This alien ocean was so strange, yet familiar.

There were fish, like on earth…but unlike earth, they were huge. Some as big as cars. The smallest fish I saw was about the size of a salmon.

Before I even knew what the morph's mind was doing, I darted forward and gobbled up one of the salmon-forms.

It wasn't bad, actually. Tasted kinda like sushi. I didn't particularly want to do it again either.

The Mega-Shark did not seem to be in the area, which was fortunate, but my morph's instincts were still cautious. First Rule of Morphing: Animals develop instincts for good reasons. If the morph is cautious, so should you be.

I darted over the drop off. I could instinctively tell which way led towards shore, and which way led towards deeper water. I surfaced my head briefly, to breath, but ducked under again once my lungs had been refreshed.

I kept my eyes open for predators, and I think that I saw something down below…it took me more than a few moments to realize what it was…

It was a cephalopod…a mollusk just like the little ones I had morphed near the shoreline…only this one…this one was huge. As big as a Buick. It jetted forward and snared a large fish, wrapping its tentacles around the fish and dragging it towards a large kelp bed nearby.

I deftly avoided going near the kelp bed. As I surged closer to the cliffs and the shoreline, I could feel sand sliding underneath my fins.

The water had become shallow enough that it would be easier to move in as a human. I began demorphing.

When morphing originally became available to humans, well…Ex-Human-Controllers, clothes had been an issue. Morphing wasn't designed to allow you to morph anything other than skintight outfits. As my gymnastics leotard had been destroyed when the Animorphs parked a tank on top of my house (You beginning to see why I'm not their biggest fan, yet?) I bought a One-Piece bathing suit that I could use for morphing.

Over time I got better about morphing, and integrated a pair of jean shorts. The Animoprhs did the same thing…by the end of the war, the could morph any set of clothing other than shoes. They'd actually been exploiting a weird glitch in the technology that worked out in their favor.

Escafil has exacerbated the glitch on purpose when he rebuilt the devices for human use, in order to allow humans (and Andalites utilizing Human Morphs) to wear clothes. I suppose, since my upgrade, I had that too, but by then I'd become accustomed to my basic one-piece suit and jean shorts.

I didn't wear makeup, and frankly, I hadn't needed it since morphing, since zits and other skin conditions are purged by the process. It was funny…When I was a teen, hanging out with Rachel at the mall, I'd worn makeup and dressed all nice and stylish, and now…Basic. Everything was basic.

I was told Rachel could pull off beautiful even after gaining the morphing power, and I believe it. Morphing actually makes it easier, believe it or not. A good morph is almost as good as a shower. Almost…Unfortunately B.O. is a natural phenomenon, and morphing does NOT get rid of it. I stank.

Fortunately, my brief morph and trip through the sea seemed to have purged any stank I might have right now.

I finished demorphing and took in my bearings as I walked to shore. In truth, I had traded one beach for another, but this beach was different. About a hundred feet from the shoreline was a massive wall of rock. It went up into the sky, and I couldn't even see the top.

The demonic looking bat-birds were everywhere on the beach, picking up scraps of debris, or eating some small animal. They were like seagulls. I moved towards one, hoping that its lack of familiarity with humans would allow me to get close and acquire it. But it wasn't having any of that, and flittered away from me at once.

I glanced at the cliff wall. Of my eight rare DNA patterns, I did have one morph that might help me scale the cliff walls. (Okay, ten now, but I didn't really count the mollusk or the Loch Ness Monster, since I didn't know how rare the morphs actually were, due to…Alien planet and all. They were my first 'non-Rare' DNA patterns I'd ever picked up.)

I had a Hork-Bajir morph. Okay, I know what you're thinking…A) Hork-Bajir aren't rare, and B) Hork-Bajir are sentient and thus it's illegal to acquire them.

Well…One, I acquired my morph before the Sapient Genetic Sovereignty Act was put into place. And those who had sentient morphs from before the law were exempt, because if they weren't, every Animorph would have to be arrested for their Hork-Bajir, Taxxon, Andalite, Leeran, Yeerk, and oh-so-many human morphs.

Second…The DNA came from Toby Hamee. (With permission, of course.) Toby was a Hork-Bajir seer. They didn't come any rarer. I think I may be the only person on the planet to have ever acquired her.

And I was seriously considering using her morph to scale the cliff walls. Hork-Bajir were arboreal, and came from a world where the only forms of life were on cliffs…It was a logical choice.

But I couldn't see the top, and I didn't want to be climbing the cliff face for hours. Especially since I only had seven hours in morph. Adding to the buffer time does not take away the fear of _nothlit_ism, the biggest fear of any morpher.

I stared at the cliff face for several minutes, before turning left, and beginning to walk.

I walked along the beach for maybe an hour or so…Trying to figure out what to do, or where to go from here. I could morph my owl, and fly up…But I knew my limits. Snowy owls could not fly that high. I doubted any earth bird could.

I wanted to acquire one of the seagull-bats, but that seemed completely unviable. They just kept flying away at every attempt to catch one.

After the second hour of walking, I came to the gap. The cliff face cleaved in two. A river pouring out of the massive walls. It was like the Grand Canyon if the Grand Canyon housed the Mississippi River.

I turned right and began walking along the riverbanks. I noticed an odd shape in the water to my left. Like a massive canvas cutting through the water. It was maybe thirty feet long and fifteen feet tall. I stared at it, uncertain of what to make of it, when suddenly it surged out of the water.

"YAAAAAHHHH!" I screamed, attempting to scamper away from the creature. I tripped and landed in the mud.

It was a crocodile. A MASSIVE, sixty-fool long crocodile with a gigantic fin on it's back.

It lumbered forward on four stocky, strong legs. Three claws on each leg, webbed, built for swimming. This creature spent most of its life in the water.

It didn't see me. It had a gigantic fish stuck in its crocodilian jaws, just wiggling there. It had come out of the water to eat its dinner, and I was just incidentally there. Too small to be noticed. This thing wasn't a predator to me…It was far more into the fish…But it was also just too big to even consider me a meal.

Or worth noticing at all, because before I realized it was happening, it surged forward and had stepped on me.

I was super-croc toe jam…This thing weighed in tons. A gigantic, crocodile sea-tank, and I was so far beneath its notice that it hadn't even registered that it had stepped on me, and was crushing me into the muddy banks of the river.

Fortunately, the massive claw was not crushing my chest, or I'd be suffocating and dead. It was just crushing both of my legs. It was painful as hell, and I was certain that both legs were broken.

But I'd broken legs before, and could easily heal them by morphing. And I wasn't about to pass up this opportunity. This creature had just handed me its DNA on a silver platter.

Even though it was technically already touching my legs, and I was fairly certain I could acquire through them…Humans like the tactile sensation of touch, and it feels more…Solid…When you are acquiring DNA through your hands.

So I reached out to the massive webbed three-toed claw, and began to acquire its DNA.


	5. King of the River

Chapter Five

_Iniss Four Five Five walked my body towards the remains of the school. I wasn't sure why. The school had long since been abandoned since the fighting had begun. _

_ (Don't worry,) Iniss said to me. (You'll find out soon enough.) _

_ The way she said it gave me pause, but I wasn't able to think it over for very long, because she slipped my body through an unlocked fire exit, and entered the building. _

_ It was creepy, no question there. Walking down the school hallway late at night, it gave me the heebie jeebies. I could tell Iniss was uncomfortable too. _

_ We entered the classroom of Mr. Tidwell, the strictest teacher in the school. To my surprise, he was in the classroom; sitting on his desk He wasn't alone, either. The classroom was filled with about a dozen humans, including three of my classmates, Rani, Clyde, and Lucas. Two Hork-Bajir, and a lone Gedd. _

_ "Iniss!" Tidwell said in surprise. "You made it." _

_ "Ditching my spawn-mate wasn't easy," Iniss said. "Fortunately, he's started to realize just how screwed the situation is, and no longer cares about where his 'daughter' wanders off to." _

_ "What's going on?" I asked, utterly confused, and then utterly shocked as I realized that I had said it aloud. _I _had said it, not Iniss. _

_ (Haven't you guessed yet, Melissa?) Iniss said. (I have only been controlling your body in the presence of other Yeerks. You've had unrestricted access to your body at all other times.) _

_ (What?) I thought, my mind reeling. _

_ "Melissa," Tidwell said. "Welcome to the Yeerk Peace Movement." _

The alien mega-crocodile had gone into the usual acquisition trance, as I absorbed his DNA. I then began to shrink as a feather pattern began to tattoo itself onto my skin…Which stretched and popped out as feathers.

My lips hardened into a beak, and my broken legs withered underneath the massive claw transforming into two small talons.

I began flapping my wings wildly, struggling to get out of the mud, and then…I was airborne. A snowy owl in the last place on the planet a Snowy Owl should ever be.

Despite being an owl, the Snowy Owl is largely a daytime predator, not a nocturnal one. It has good daylight vision and is built for flying over tundra and other low-heat environments.

But the bat like creatures were eying me ever since I had taken wing. Animals have few reactions to creatures that they are unfamiliar with. Most avoid anything they don't know…But a few try and hunt it.

I was being hunted and I knew it. The swarm of flying reptiles was inching closer and closer to me.

I had to land and demorph quickly, or they would attack me.

I fluttered towards what appeared to be a Cliffside nest and began to demorph in it. Quickly becoming too large a creature for the swarm to deal with. My pursuers dispersed.

I slumped back. The nest was really a large bundle of twigs. It reminded me of an eagle nest back on earth. The twigs were bundled together into a sphere, and I could see a clutch of six or seven eggs within it.

"Cwwwawwwwwk," a voice called, and I instantly realized that the nest's owner had returned.

She was about as big as a hawk. Larger than the demonic bat-gulls. She reminded me of images I'd seen of Pterodactyls back on earth, but there was one key difference.

She had what appeared to be a massive Elk-Antler sticking out of her beak. Okay, it was a single, long horn, but it pronged backwards, making her aerodynamic. It forked, so it had only two prongs.

"No way you're an earth animal," I said to the creature as she hissed at me, trying to scare me away from her eggs.

The question of whether or not the species around here were from earth had been on my mind since I'd crashed here. I had heard Erica's pronouncement, and felt certain that she had to be wrong. But there had been a nagging doubt the entire time.

Every animal seemed like it _could _be related to an earth species. Even the fish I had caught had seemed earth-like.

But this pterodactyl-elk thing…No way. No way had earth created this creature, right?

I reached out and grabbed its horn firmly with my right arm. It hissed in irritation, but then it's eyes fluttered shut as I absorbed its DNA.

Ten minutes later I was standing in the riverbanks just upriver from the two creatures that I had encountered and acquired. I had morphed and flown there.

On the opposite bank I saw what appeared to be three enormous crocodiles. They looked just like earth crocs, but bigger. Bus sized. Though not as tall or with quite the girth of the sail-backed mega-croc from downriver.

This gave me pause. They were very much like earth-crocodiles, and my mind wandered back to what Erica had said on the Pemalite ship. That the planet was covered in Earth-Based DNA.

Giant crocodiles did _seem_ pretty earth-like. Nile Crocodiles and Australlian Saltwater crocodiles could get quite big.

But what about the sail-backed crocodlian? Or the Elk-Horned winged reptile. Or the cinnamon bun-shaped mollusk? Surely none of these were earth animals? They didn't look like any earth-creature I knew.

But did that mean that they weren't? I had assumed so till I saw the crocodiles. But the crocs seemed so earth-like that I was no longer quite so sure of that. Earth does have a lot of strange creatures…Including some that can come in very bizarre flavors.

In the 1800s when explorers were bringing back platypus remains and images from Australia, scientists immediately dismissed the monotreme as a fake. Nothing like that could possibly exist in nature, they said.

So I wasn't about to dismiss the concept out of hand…But at the same time, I couldn't fathom where any of these creatures might have come from. I've been to Madagascar, South Africa, Sumatra…Dozens of places all over the world where rare animals like to hang out…But I had never seen anything like the animals I'd encountered since crashing on this planet.

But something was nagging me. Something was nagging me in the back of my mind, and it was driving me crazy. I had no idea what it was though.

I waded into the river, about knee-deep, and focused my mind on the image of the sail-backed crocosaur that I had acquired. The changes were immediate. I shot upwards as my size began to rapidly increase. My face began to bulge out and my teeth began sharpening into knife-like cones. My fingers melted together into massive three-fingered claws. My toes did the same. Webbing immediately formed between the clawed feet.

My spine stretched out of my posterior as my skin began cracking and transforming into scales. I fell forward onto all fours and my size just kept increasing. Pretty soon I was sixty feet long.

The final change was the sail…My spine just sort of started…Tingling, and stretching out of my back. Shooting upwards and forming the massive sail.

The mind bubbled up underneath my own. It was a powerful mind. Ancient. Predatory. It owned this river. It OWNED it. Nothing messed with me.

Not the large crocs on the far bank…Since I had transformed, they were now eyeing me warily. They knew who was in charge of the river.

Even others of my kind would give me berth. If there was one of equal size, then we would sort of chill, and share the territory. But if there was a smaller one…He avoided me, or he was lunch.

This was why I enjoyed the territory near the mouth of the river. It was the primary fishing spot. Only one as old and as tough as myself got to claim this choice bit of river. Where more fish gathered than upriver.

It was not so different from my alligator mind, truth be told. Just, _more_ so.

The sense of smell was only slightly better than my human smell. Vision was good, but not as good as say, my owl morph. I had a second set of eyelids like a crocodilian, allowing me to see underwater, not that there was much to see. The river wasn't exactly a blue lagoon.

I surged forward into deeper water. What was knee-deep to my human self didn't even really count as being in the water to my morph's sensibilities.

The river was quite deep, and quite wide though. I was able to submerge by the time I hit the middle of the river. When my snout hit the water…Everything changed.

The tip of my snout was coated in sensitive sense receptors covered by thick skin. I had something similar in alligator form. The receptors took in information from the water, and relayed it to my brain.

Heat, currents, water pressure, chemicals in the water, biological presences. Basically, every last bit of information about the water you could think of.

It wasn't that I could just sense what was in the water…While I was in the water, the water WAS my senses. It was an extension of myself. I knew exactly where every fish was. Exactly where every turtle or plant was. I could sense everything in the water within a mile.

I sensed the other of my kind, down river, my DNA donor for this morph. He was lazily napping halfway in the river, halfway out. We were the same size, so my presence didn't bother him and vice versa. I sensed a smaller member of my kind up river, and he sensed me, and was swimming further up river to give me berth.

I sensed every fish, every giant crocodile. If it was in the water, I knew it was there. The water was me.

(Wow,) I whispered. I had never really experienced a morph like this before. Like I said, my alligator had similar sense receptors on its snout, but I had barely used the morph.

In fact, I realized then, that I barely used any of my morphs. Mostly just my owl, truthfully. Eight morphs, and I barely used any of them. I had made a career from the thrill of _acquiring _morphs, but never using them. Never enjoying what the morphs had to offer, or using the gifts that they possessed.

I resolved right then, to never do that again. My river-king morph had been an eye-opener to what the world of morphing had the potential to be. And I was never going to take it for granted again.

I began swimming upriver…For a creature of my size, I swam surprisingly fast. Though I had a lot in common with crocodilians, one thing I didn't have in common, was the method by which a swam. Crocodiles swam slowly, methodically, using their feet and tails as paddles.

The River-King swam more like an otter, or a platypus. I surged through the water at speeds that crocodiles only dream about. It was no wonder the gigantic ones on the riverbanks didn't want to mess with the River-King. I was their superior and they knew it.

The river itself was flowing from the east, more or less, though it twisted and wound through the massive cliffs. I figured that the water had to come from somewhere, and if I started swimming towards the source, then maybe…Just maybe…I might find my friends there as well.

It was a big planet, and a long shot, but it was all I had to go on. The River-King's water-senses would be able to detect any animal climbing in or out of the river within a mile…If any morph I had could detect a human swimming or drinking from the water…This was the one that could do it.

I headed upriver, and didn't look back.


	6. White Lion

Chapter Six

It had taken me almost three months…Three months of traveling down the river, and I had reached the end of the gorge. I wasn't always in the River-King morph. Sometimes I flew, and a few times, when I was sure that there weren't any 30-foot crocogators around, I would walk along the riverbanks in my human form.

In those three months, I had caught fish with the River-King, and eaten the fish, both in-morph, and out of it. I had found more Frut-Trees along the banks and eaten from them.

But one thing I hadn't found…was neither hide nor hair of my shipmates. No evidence whatsoever that humans had walked anywhere along this river, save for myself.

The gorge had narrowed in places, and at one point had closed up over the river…but thanks to the River-King's "Water Sense" I knew that the gorge reopened less than a half-mile from where it closed up, so I dove underwater, and swam under the "Land bridge" that bridged the two plateaus.

And now, now I was at the end of the gorge, the other end of the plateau. It had widened out, towards the end, so that it looked like a massive open maw in the rock face.

And before me, was a massive desert. Nothing but sand, for miles in every direction. The river continued to cut its way through the desert, the only change in scenery around. There were plants and trees and lush green vegetation in the black sands by the riverbanks…but beyond that…Red sands in either direction as far as the eye could see.

I slumped against a frut tree about a hundred feet from the gorge. A lone, reptilian creature lazily basked in the sun nearby. It looked sort of like a miniature version of my River King morph, though the legs were shorter and stuck out on the sides, like a lizard or crocodile, and the feet and head were shaped differently.

But the sail on its back was the same. I knew that from the River-King Morph, the sail was sort of like a solar cell, or thermo regulator. It could take in heat and redistribute it throughout the body.

For the river king, this allowed under-water hunting even in the coldest parts of the river, as I could take in external heat from the air above the water, and distribute it to my massive body before diving underwater and into the cold.

For this little guy, I suspected he used it to redistribute the desert heat and keep himself cool during the day, and warm at night.

He yawned lazily and shifted closer to the river to take a drink, ignoring me completely. I was just a little too big for him to consider prey.

As for me…I had a dilemma. I could keep going…Follow the river into the vast desert, or turn back and then follow the river back to its mouth, where I came in.

But honestly…I didn't think that would be anymore useful than when I came in. I had been through a lot in my life. Becoming a controller. A slave to the Yeerk-Empire, attacked by a lion in South Africa…But nothing filled me with more despair and hopelessness than being alone on an alien planet.

I cried. I hadn't cried in years. Not since before the Yeerk War. When I believed (erroneously) that my parents had ceased loving me. In truth, it was the Yeerks, failing miserably to pretend to love me.

As the sun began to set and slink below the horizon, I closed my eyes and cried myself to sleep.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

A loud whistling sound and a massive fireball careening out of the sky awakened me. I jumped to my feet in shock. The fireball slammed into the desert sands just a few miles away…Just out of my range of vision.

_The Pemalite ship?_ I considered. Supposedly that would have crashed almost two months ago…but I hadn't seen any evidence of its planet fall.

I didn't know what this was, but it had to be important. I focused my mind on my snowy owl morph and began morphing.

The snowy owl is a daytime predator, primarily. It was built for flight over tundra, and an area of land that is daylight six months of the year. But the other six months, it is dark, so the snowy owl is just as capable of nighttime hunting as other owls. Their night vision isn't nearly as good as that of other owls, but it's still better than human night-vision.

On top of that, this desert had quickly dipped into the "below freezing" point. Many deserts that are roasting hot during the day are equally freezing at night. While I was certain that in a daytime environment, the snowy owl would drop dead of heat exhaustion within a half-hour, at night, the owl's cold-weather adaptations were just about perfect. My feathers kept me nice and toasty…Warmer than I had been as a human, and the residual head from the desert sands created some nice thermals I was able to coast over.

I saw a series of light flashes coming from the crash site…and as I approached I gasped at what I saw.

It was what appeared to be a massive pale white colored crab, with transparent skin and visible organs. It had eight pincers sticking out of its back, like some sort of nightmare anemone. But that's not what was making me gasp.

What it was fighting was what was making me gasp. A Tyrannosaurus Rex. A genuine T-Rex. I couldn't believe it. A T-Rex, fighting a see-through crab monster in the middle of the desert. He wasn't alone either.

By his side was a stegosaurus, swinging its tail and hacking at the crab-legs. Underneath the crab, ramming at its legs was a triceratops-looking creature. The frill wasn't quite right…Not quite the same shape as I had seen in books. But the fact that these three creatures were _actual _dinosaurs was mind blowing.

And my mind was rapidly blowing in other ways too. Every creature I had seen…definitely resembled a prehistoric animal in some way or another. My mini-Loch Ness monster morph. The Horned-Pterasaur. The oversized crocogators.

Even the River-King struck me as rather saurian. I didn't have much time to consider "I'm on a planet of freaking dinosaurs" when I swooped in closer, and suddenly Jason's thought-speak was ringing in my head.

(It's a distraction!) He yelled. (The little ones are getting away)

(I can see that Jason,) Emily's voice declared. (But I can't do anything about it because it's a _good _distraction.)

I saw what he meant. A number of small blue antelope-like animals were bounding away from the twisted hunk of metal at the center of the now-glass crater.

_I have a morph that could take them._ I thought.

I fluttered down to the other side of a sand dune and rapidly demorphed.

You can't tell where thought-speak comes from, so I wasn't sure who was who, but the T-rex, stegosaurus, and not-quite-Triceratops were clearly Jason, Menderash, and Emily in morph. And clearly they had shown up to the crash site on purpose. Clearly they needed help, too. I demorphed as quickly as I could while making sure to stay just out of sight. I didn't need the blue-antelopes or the giant-nightmare-crab spotting me.

Then I focused my mind on the morph I had acquired in South Africa, on a safari/rescue mission while filming _Morph Hunters. _

A savannah lodge had reported a white lion—A Leucistic Lion, not unlike my leucistic Alligator morph—Had been spotted. Unlike Leucistic Alligators though, White Lions were known to survive in the wild, since they're brought up as part of a pride, and less likely to get picked off by predators when young.

But they were exceedingly rare, and unlike the gators, it's not illegal in South Africa for humans to hunt white lions. The lodge that had called us in shared its property line with another lodge. A rival lodge that they knew was going to offer its tourists a chance to hunt the Lion. They called us because while they could prevent the rival lodge from hunting the lion on their property, they could not stop the lion from crossing into the other property.

It was one of the greatest triumphs of my career on _Morph Hunters_. Tranquilizing the rare, and gorgeous animal, and having it shipped to a preserve. And of course, the sweet reward of the white lion's DNA.

My body began to bulk up, soft pads forming on my palms and feet. My mane began to sprout out of my head as my long—And slightly unkempt—blond hair began to shrink into the white mane of the lion.

My cat-like night vision came online along with my sight and hearing, and I fell forward onto all fours as a tail extended out of my spine.

Instantly I saw one of the blue-antelope things bounding away, and my lion instincts kicked in. I was on that thing like a cat on a mouse.

(What the hell?) I heard Jason's thought-speak. (Is that a lion?)

(I think so,) Emily commented. (But it's white? Like…Kimba?)

I snarled and tackled the first antelope, hamstringing it's hindquarters with my claws, and tearing out it's jugular with my teeth. I didn't hesitate or attempt to eat my kill though…I may have been a lion, but I was still human in mind, and could direct my instincts towards a target.

I was after the second antelope.

As I moved to kill this one, I heard Jason's thought-speak.

(It must be Melissa!) He said.

(Melissa,) Emily asked tentatively. (Is that you?)

(Yes,) I said tersely. I hadn't spoken to anyone in almost three months, thought-speak or otherwise. I must have "sounded" off to them,

An Andalite like tail suddenly erupted out of the Antelope's tail, but instead of a scythe-blade on the tip, there was some sort of three-clawed hand with a spear sticking out of it.

(Oh God!) Jason said. (Melissa STOP! GET AWAY FROM THE—)

It was too late, and the spear stabbed me in my ribcage as I attempted to hamstring the Andalope.

(DEMORPH!) Emily yelled.

(Demorph right away,) Jason said. (You're vulnerable in that morph! The One just injected its virus into you.)

_Ignore them,_ I thought. _Don't demorph, Melissa. You want this. You want to become a part of the One. It's important to be greater than the whole. _

(What the hell am I thinking!?) I demanded suddenly. I was certain those were _my thoughts_ just now…But I wasn't thinking them. It's hard to explain. It was sort of like hypnosis. Like the free will was being sapped from my consciousness.

_You say that like it's a bad thing, _I thought. _But wouldn't it be nice? Just…To be a part of a whole. Part of something bigger…Better. To be…One. _

I could hear other voices too…other thoughts that weren't mine…that distinctly weren't mine, we bubbling underneath "my" thoughts, like an undertow in the ocean. I could feel that undertow pulling at my conscious mind…if I waited too long…then it would suck me under and I would be lost among that mass of voices.

(Oh hell no!) I said. I began to demorph, my human features beginning to surface over my leonine ones.

_No, wait, _I thought, even as I focused on being human again. _I don't want to be human. Humans are boring. They aren't One. I want to be One. _

And that's when the scary part happened…I started remorphing.

(NO!) I cried. And began demorphing again.

_Yes, _I thought, and began remorphing.

(Oh God,) I said. (What's happening?)

(Fight it, Melissa,) Jason said. (You still have time. The One hasn't taken full control yet. Purge it from your body and DEMORPH NOW!)

The blue antelope approached me quizzically, as if preparing to stab me again.

(Oh no you don't,) Jason said. Suddenly the T-Rex lunged down and snapped the antelope up, gobbling it up in two bites.

(Won't you be infected too?) I wondered, even as I fought my own mind to demorph.

(Local wildlife is completely immune to the One,) Jason—Who I now presumed was the T-Rex—said.

(You're a dinosaur,) I said stupidly.

(Yes,) Jason said. (Local wildlife is dinosaurs. Lot of them.)

_No, don't demorph, _I thought. But I was gaining the upper hand over myself. The part of me that wanted to join the One was getting weaker. And I was getting stronger. My human form reasserted itself.

"I think…" I said. "I think I'm me again."

(Good,) Jason said.

(Jason, sir,) Menderash's thought-speak chimed in for the first time since I'd arrived. (The crustacean creature is not as dead as we thought it was.)

(Got a local morph?) Jason asked. (Because we could use an assist.)

"What about the gazelle-things?" I asked.

(Muk-Luk will get them,) Jason said. (He's already fried two. We need help with the big one.)

"Who?" I asked, frowning.

(Oh, he's a Kelbrid. You coming Melissa?)

"Yeah," I said. I imagined myself as the River-King and began to sprout up. I was exhausted from all the morphing I'd done so far, but I wasn't done yet.

Full length I was even larger that Jason's T-Rex, which looked to be about 50 feet long, whereas I was a 60 foot long crocodilian behemoth.

(Nice Spinosaurus morph!) Jason commented.

(Spinosaurus?) I asked.

(I think,) He said. (Last time a complete Spiny was found was before World War One…and it was destroyed during the same war. Most scientists thought it walked like an upright therapod, like my Rex. You just disproved that though…a quadrapedal gait…who would have ever thought? But the rest of you…Definitely screams Spinosaurus to me.)

(I…What? What am I talking to right now?) I demanded.

(Should…Should I not know that?) Jason asked. (Is that not a thing I should know?)

(Hey!) Emily said. (Your Dinosaur Nerdiness has saved our lives, so as far as I am concerned, it makes you the sexiest guy on this planet. Now get over here and help us take this lobster DOWN!)

The tyrannosaur looked almost bashful, but then roared and charged at the crab. I let out a similar saurian roar from my massive crocodilian maw, and charged, slamming my massive jaws on a semi-transparent leg, and tearing it straight off.

The stegosaurus and the ceratopsian rammed their tail and horns into the creature, as Jason and I ripped it apart with our jaws. Between the four of us, it was dead within minutes. We were powerhouses. Massive monsters, capable of crushing anything in our way.

(I have eliminated the infected creatures that escaped from the crashed ship piece,) a new thought-speak voice said.

A small—Compared to my Spinosaurus morph, anyway—gangly green creature arrived. It took me a moment to realize that it was flying via a jetpack on its back, and that the green, chrome colored body was in fact, armor.

It had no eyes, which was more than a little unsettling.

(Muk-Luk,) Emily said. (This is Melissa. Melissa, Muk-Luk the Kelbrid.)

(A pleasure,) I said.

(I think it's dead,) Jason said, kicking at the massive crustacean corpse now before us.

(Excellent,) Muk-Luk said. (That accounts for every One Ship piece that broke apart in orbit. The planet is now free from infection.)

(For now, anyway,) Jason commented. The tyrannosaurus began to turn pink, and shrink.

The other two dinosaurs did as well. I followed suit and began demorphing. I watched the others with interest. The ceratopsian was Emily, as her long raven-hair was the first thing to reappear. The stegosaurus was Medenerash, the Andalite/Human-_Nothlit_ who had blackmailed Jason into coming with us in the first place.

Jason and Emily, as soon as they were human, ran to each other and kissed, quite passionately. I flushed in embarrassment.

(They have been doing that often,) Menderash said to me privately. (I am glad you are here now, Melissa, as I am no longer the only one discomforted by it.)

Jason and Emily broke their embrace, and ran over and grabbed me in a big group hug.

"I'm so glad you're okay," Jason said. "After all this time…we thought…we thought that you might be dead."

"Where were you all this time?" Emily said. "We scoured the plateau."

"The…Plateau?" I said. "I've riding the river…I never…I didn't occur to me that you might be ON TOP of the plateau. I figured that the air was too thin."

"This atmosphere is about twelve times thicker than that of earth's," Menderash offered helpfully. "The air does not become thin for several miles over the height of the plateau, which is home to a rich variety of life forms."

"Dinosaurs, mostly," Jason said. "Though we've seen some pre-Triassic reptiles like gorgonopsids and scutosaurus up there too."

"Is he speaking English?" I asked Emily.

"Jason appears to have some manner of expertise in the local fauna," Menderash offered helpfully. "Which appear to all be earth animals from prehistoric eras. As such, the planet is apparently his property under Kebrid Law."

"Get out of town," I said.

Jason blushed.

"Nope," Emily said. "It's true. Jason owns the planet. We've spent the past two months wiping out the One ship parts that have been crashing into the plateau. It's been crazy, because the One learns every time we fight it. We've had to change tactics for EVERY crash-site."

"The last site," Jason said. "Was here in this desert though."

He looked over at the solid glass crater.

"We acquired Ouranosauruses that were hanging out by the riverbanks. We figured that they were like camels or something, because they were all lingering near the desert. Nor were we wrong. The sails on their backs—,"

"Regulate their body temperature," I finished.

"Right," Jason said. "Spinosaurus. Makes sense too. There's also some Dimetrodon around here. I'm guessing all three hang out near this river. It's the only water source below the plateau for miles. Winds through the entire desert actually. The source is in the mountains at the other end of the desert."

"There's other creatures too," I said. "Lots of big fish. And these über-crocogator things."

"Probably deinosuchus," Jason commented.

"And a whole bunch of demonic-bat things," I said. "Pterasaurs, I'm guessing?"

"Probably," Jason said. "I've counted like 18 species all hanging out in the canyons."

"There's some swarms of little white seagull-like ones near the oceans," I said, and described them to him as best I could.

"Sordes," He said. "I think…Or rhamphorhynchus. But my gut says Sordes."

"Let's go with that," I said. "It's easier to pronounce than rham-sick-lo-plotz or whatever you just said."

"Welcome to my world," Emily said.

"How do you guys look so clean?" I asked.

"Oh," Emily looked at Jason. "We have a shower…Running water…Bunks…It's a whole thing. We'll show you when we get back to camp."

"Do you have a pterosaur morph?" Jason asked. "You could use that owl morph you've got…But pterosaurs rule the skies around here…they're the safe bet for flying."

"Yeah," I commented. "I acquired this weird-looking thing. It actually convinced me that I was on an alien planet, it looked so weird. Until I saw you guys in morph, I was convinced these were all alien morphs. I'll show you."

I began to morph, and sure enough, the massive thin, pronged swept-back horn was the first thing to emerge as I changed.

"Nyctosaurus," Jason said as I morphed. "Very obscure, but a pterosaur. Definitely an earth animal."

(Wow,) I said, truly floored. (I hand no idea that anything like this existed on earth, like…Ever.)

The others began to morph.

(Come with us, Melissa,) Jason said. (We will show you wondrous animals from ancient earth, which you won't be able to believe ever existed. We will show you what it means to be a Dinomorph.)


	7. Say Hi George and Martha

Chapter Seven

I flapped my wings hard, desperately trying to gain some altitude. The others were struggling too. It had been easier for them to come down off of the plateau than it was to fly back up it. Especially at night.

Jason was a Quetzalcoatlus. A massive flying reptile, as tall as a giraffe, with a wingspan like a jumbo jet. Emily was just a few hundred feet behind us, a pteranodon.

Menderash was a similar pterasaur with a bizarre shaped head. Jason said it was called a Tapejara.

{So,} I said as we struggled to gain altitude. {"Dinomorphs"? Could you BE any more of an Animorphs fanboy?}

Emily snickered in thought-speak. {Not if he tried.}

{_I _thought it sounded cool,} he said indignantly.

{Jeeze, how high is this plateau?} I asked.

{Approximately 8, 473 Earth-Meters or 27,799 Earth-Feet tall,} Menderash piped up.

{That's almost the height of Everest!} I said in surprise. {I can't believe the air isn't thin up there.}

{The atmosphere is thicker apparently,} Jason said.

It was true. I could feel that the air _was_ thinning, but it hadn't dipped to levels that were anywhere near the discomfort levels for humans. If anything, it was a freeing sensation. Ever since I had wound up on the island, the atmosphere had seemed almost…Too thick. Not so much that it was unlivable, but it was like being at those "below sea level" points on the planet like death valley.

{It is more oxygen-rich as well,} Menderash said. {Still breathable, thankfully, but the percentage is distinctly different than the Oxygen-Nitrogen atmosphere that modern humans breath.}

We breached the cloud layer, and then suddenly caught a strong updraft that carried us several hundred feet up. No flapping.

{We've reached the jetstream,} Jason announced. {We can ride this current up and over the plateau.}

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

A few hours later we were circling a massive domed structure. Jason, Emily, and Menderash had spent the last few hours filling me in some of the things that they had been doing since arriving on the planet.

Muk-Luk the Kelbrid had accompanied us, but had been stoic and quiet. This was apparently the norm.

We landed near the edge of the dome and began demorphing, resuming human shape.

As we did two shapes suddenly bounded out of the forest to us.

{It's cool,} Jason said. {George, Martha! STAY}

The Deinonychus froze.

{We've gotten them to obey simple thought-speak commands,} Emily said. {Doesn't work in human form though.}

{Thought-Speak includes universal symbols as well as words,} Menderash said. {The Deinonychus are intelligent enough to understand the symbols, but not necessarily the words.}

My Nyctosaurus morph melted away.

"Do you want to acquire one?" Jason asked. "Menderash and I acquired George. Emily has Martha. She's the drabber one."

"Well," I said. "Feminist solidarity needs to win out, I said cautiously approaching the dinosaur, which, for all the World looked like a velociraptor from Jurassic Park. The male was a sort of yellowish-orange with reddish-orange stripes and blue streaks on it's snout. The female was darker orange, almost brown, with brown stripes.

I gingerly approached her. She snarled and snapped at me. I noticed Jason was morphing into an exactly duplicate of "George".

{Hold} he said. The deinonychus held still. I placed my hand gently on "Martha's" back. Her eyes glazed over as her DNA passed into me.

{Good,} Jason said.

The Deinonychus broke the trance ten seconds after I broke contact. The dinosaurs circled me, uncertainly.

{Don't be alarmed,} Jason said. {I'm keeping an eye on them, but they're very smart. They seem to get that acquiring is sort of…The pack initiation if you will. We let you acquire Martha, so you're pack now.}

Both dinosaurs sniffed at me rather closely, then huffed, as though I didn't impress them. They let out a series of short chirps.

{They're hungry,} Jason said. {We didn't hunt together today, cuz we were off fighting the One.}

"There's still some fish in the fridge," Emily said. "I'll get it."

{Take Melissa with you. Might as well get her Morph Clones in ASAP.}

"There's a fridge in there?" I asked.

"We found a lot of neat stuff in the middle dome, which is storage. Set up a sort of…Living room in the main dome, though we're pretty sure that it's supposed to be a science lab. It clones our morphs every time we step inside though."

"All our morphs?" I inquired as we approached the door.

"One time only," Emily said. "But every new acquisition gets cloned too. The Ouranosaurs that we picked up in the desert should be cloned tonight along with, like, all of your morphs."

"I have a Hork-Bajir morph," I commented. "Toby Hamee. The seer."

"Huh," Emily said. "Well…I guess a Hork-Bajir fits in as much as anything else does. They are kinda saurian. The clones are artificially aged and then released into the wild. We saw my horse morph a few weeks after it was cloned, though no sign of any of the other cloned morphs. Press the button to the right of the door."

I blinked in surprise but did as she asked. Nothing happened.

"Yeah," Emily said. "Doesn't work for Melissa either."

{Debunks the theory that it detected Menderash's _nothlit_ism then,} Jason said.

"What?" I asked.

Emily pressed the button.

{Authorized DNA pattern detected,} A mechanical thought-speak voice said. The door slid open.

"It only let's Jason and myself in," she said sheepishly. "We're not quite sure why."

{Unscanned Naltron Cell Storage Detected,} a voice said as Emily walked in. {DNA sample scanning commencing. Complete. Biodiversity update.}

"And there's the Ouranosaurus," Emily said pointing towards a tube at the far end.

I stepped through and the thought-speak voice repeated what it had said before.

Fourteen more tubes emerged from the ground on the far end of the room, which had tables, and what looked like beanbag chairs casually strewn about. A single refrigerator with a see-through door was off to the side. Emily walked over to that.

"Last week," she said. "Jason and I were…Um…We were alone together in the forest, and we ran into this thing he called a 'baryonyx'. It's sort of like a cross between a grizzly bear and a crocodile. We acquired it's DNA and have been using the morph to catch fish as a supplement to our diet. We caught a lot, and this fridge is also a stasis chamber, so stuff doesn't go bad."

She pulled out a hunk of what looked sort of like salmon. She walked over to the door and departed with it…Presumably to feed it to the Deinonychuses. I was hungry as well, but far more interested in the tubes on the wall. One did indeed contain Emily's Ouranosaurus morph. But the other tubes…

One had a Spinosaurus fetus, the next, a baby Gooty's Tarantula, Sumatran Rhinocerous, White Lion, White Alligator, Angonoka, Golden Bamboo Lemur, Golden Zebra, Snowy Owl, the Nyctosaurus, the newly added Deinonychus. The mollusk and loch-ness morphs, which I was certain Jason could identify for me, and last, but certainly not least…A baby Hork-Bajir.

"Wow," I breathed. All my morphs before me, in one place. It was a little weird.

"Nice morphs," Jason said behind me, making me jump a little.

"Thanks," I said. "What are these two?" I asked curiously, and briefly described the island I had landed on and the morphs I had picked up there.

"Ammonite," Jason said. "The cephalopod is called an Ammonite. As for that…That's a plesiosaur of some kind. Wish I could be more specific, but there were a lot of plesiosaur sub-species. Elasmasaurus, pliosaurus, nothosaurus, leopluridon, it could even be an unknown plesiosaur. I just can't tell at that stage of development."

"Huh," I commented.

"You found Melissa!" a new voice declared.

We spun around and there was Erica the Chee standing in the doorway. Emily had let her in.

"Yep," I said, grinning. "I've been found!"

"I've found something too," she said grinning.

"Oh?" Emily asked.

"I think I know where the Pemalite research base is," Erica said.

"Melissa _and _the thing we came here for?" Jason said. "Oh this is a _good _day."

I suddenly got the weird feeling Jason had just jinxed us.


	8. Kronosaur

Chapter Eight

I decided that I was too tired to contemplate the ethical implications of releasing an unsuspecting Hork-Bajir onto a planet full of carnivorous dinosaurs. And smelly. I was too smelly too.

"I need a shower," I said.

"Follow me," Emily. She led me around the exterior of the dome to the third sphere, and placed her hand on the console for the third dome.

The door slid open and we entered. There was a curtain down the center of the dome, which, I think, had been added recently, to allow Emily—And now myself—Some privacy. The walls of each side of the dome were covered in bunks that were built right into the walls, about ten on each side.

"These are human beds," I commented.

"We think so too," Emily said. "Which raises further questions."

She led me to the far end of the dome, where a single door led into a spacious bathroom with showers and a series of toilet stalls.

I shivered in delight. I undressed and Emily parted my company taking my nasty clothes with her. I turned on the shower. Piping hot water came pouring out. I showered for almost an hour, simply enjoying the pleasure of the hot water, as well as scrubbing myself clean, shampooing and conditioning my hair, and shaving my legs and armpits (I was growing more than a little tired of the 'European' look.) And just basically grooming myself for the first time in months.

It was a good feeling.

After I got out of the shower, and noticed Emily must have returned at some point while I had been bathing. There was a large, fluffy towel and my clothes had been cleaned while I was gone. I quickly dressed and exited the dome.

I had to knock on the door to get back in, though, which was a little annoying.

Jason let out a low whistle when I came in.

"You look good, Melissa," he said.

"Thanks," I said. "I feel SO much better now. It's amazing what a shower can do for a girl after three months without one."

"So," I said grinning. "Pemalite base?"

"I'm not 100% sure," Erica said, backtracking a little. "But the Pemalite Ship's onboard sensors have detected trace amounts of Nickel, Ramonite, and Onkaillium."

"Basically," Jason said. "Non-terrestrial alloys."

"Where is the Pemalite ship?" I asked, brightening. The others winced.

"Very, very broken," Erica said. "Ripped in half, in fact. Nanites are repairing the ship, but it's very slow going. Glacially slow."

"Oh wow," I commented.

"The Pemalite base?" Menderash asked, trying to get us back on topic.

"About 50 or so miles west of the plateau," Erica answered.

I blinked.

"West of the plateau?" I repeated.

"Yep."

"That's ocean," I said. "That's where I friggin came from. You telling me I have to go backwards?"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

{I see a clam!} Jason called out.

{Forget your clams,} Emily said. {I raise you a very big hermit crab, in-transition from one shell to another.}

{There appears to be a rotting fish near the shoreline,} Menderash piped up.

We were Sordes. Jason had morphed into a Quetzalcoatlus and snatched one right out of the air. His Queztal morph ruled the skies uncontested by any but his fellow Quetzals. Sometimes size DOES matter.

We had all acquired the shorebird-like reptile, but found, that very much like seagulls back on earth, they were opportunistic scavengers. So we found ourselves calling out loud anytime we something on the shore that looked tasty.

Which was almost anything alive or dead down there. But it's not what we were actually looking for.

The others had no ocean going morphs. So we were hugging the shoreline looking for one. Something tough enough to not become lunchmeat immediately after diving into the water.

Since my plesiosaur morph had come to shore not that long ago to lay eggs, we were hoping to spot another plesiosaur doing the same. Jason figured that it was likely a seasonal thing, and since it wasn't that long ago, there was a chance that we could catch another one in the act.

So far, no dice. And we had been in morph nearly the full seven hours and forty-two minutes. We were going to have to demorph soon.

{We could fly over the ocean,} I suggested. {Maybe spot something that way?}

{Almost everything in that ocean,} Jason said. {Is big enough to swallow us whole without even blinking. I'd rather…}

Jason trailed off as we turned along the shoreline, and entered a rather large lagoon formed by the Cliffside. And on the far end of the lagoon, beached, was a very large reptile.

{Okay,} Jason said. {That will work.}

It was massive. At least fifty-feet long. It looked like a giant komodo dragon, actually, but with blue-green scales. And fins instead of clawed feet.

{What is it?} I asked as we flew closer. Hundreds of our Sordes brothers and sisters were circling it as well. It breathed heavily, proving it was still alive. But it lay on it's side, and certainly _looked_ dead, if not for the breathing.

{Some kind of mosasaur,} Jason said. {Tylosaur, maybe? Or Kronosaurus. I'm not so good with the not-Dinosaurs, okay?}

{Okay,} I said. {Mosasaur. So…Tell us what you do know?}

{The largest member of the Mosasaur family is called Hainosaurus,} He said, sounding frustrated. {Tylosaurus and Kronosaurus and whoa…Check out his tail!}

I did. The Sordes's eyes could pierce the water like an osprey or seagull's eyes could The tail was not in keeping with the Komodo Dragon like upper body. It had a dorsal fin sticking out of the top of it that make it look like an upsidedown shark's tail, rather than a reptile's tail.

{I think this big guy beached himself,} Emily said. {Chased something into the lagoon hoping to catch dinner, and then the tide went out and he got stuck.}

{If he's a sea-going reptile,} I said, as we fluttered to the ground next to the mosasaur. {Shouldn't he be able to get back into the water easily? I mean…Sea reptiles gotta come ashore to lay eggs. Look at Sea Turtles and Crocodiles?}

We began to grow and stretch, our human bodies replacing the Sordes bodies.

{Some scientists think that the mosasaurs…At least the big ones…May have given live birth. They're so big, it would be extremely awkward t—,} Jason was cut off by losing the ability to thought-speak as he demorphed.

Finding myself fully human before the others, I walked up to the large beached reptile. His eye watched me approach, and I saw his tail struggle vainly in the water. Hoping to get some kind of motion going, but it just didn't work. I pressed my palm against his leathery skin, and focused on his DNA. Shortly thereafter, Jason, Emily, and Menderash did the same thing.

"I feel sorry for him," Emily said, as we finished absorbing his DNA. "He's probably going to die in this lagoon."

"Unless we help him?" I commented.

The four of us exchanged a glance.

"This is a stupid idea," Jason said as his Tyrannosaur features began to emerge.

"He did just give us his DNA," Emily said, as horns began to erupt from her head.

"It's only fair," I said as the Spinosaurus sail erupted from my back.

Moments later, a Tyrannosaurus, a Spinosaurus, a Chasmasaurus, and a Stegosaurus began pushing the Mosasaurus back into the water. He was a heavy lizard…But not so heavy compared to the four dinosaurs that were pushing him into the water. We represented some of the largest animals to walk the earth. The Mosasaur was back in the water within a few moments, and, looking very surprised indeed, turned and bolted back towards the ocean.

{Hey guys,} I said. {Demorph and ride on my back. My Spinosaurus is a great swimmer. We can get further out and into the ocean before morphing the Mosasaur.}

They did, and climbed aboard as I swam out of the lagoon, and further and further into the ocean.

Spinosaurus prefer hunting in the river, or freshwater. But it wasn't a hard and fast rule though. My "water sense" that came in from my snout detected at least two other Spinosaurus out here in the ocean. I swam away from them, keeping my senses attuned to everything in the water.

{I think that we are far enough out,} Menderash said. {That we are not in danger of becoming beached.}

{Wait,} I said, steering away from a mega-shark I sensed passing by. The shark was not interested in the Spinosaurus. Spiny would not make for easy prey.

{Okay,} I said. {We're good.}

The others slipped off my back as I began to demorph, my human features replacing my Spinosaurus features.

Two minutes later, we were four very wet kids in the middle of a prehistoric ocean.

I focused my mind on the Mosasaur that we had acquired. My spine was the first thing to change, stretching out and forming the upsidedown-shark-like tail. My skin thickened and became leathery. My fingers and toes began melting together, forming the massive paddles that dangled from the sides of the reptile.

My teeth began to sharpen, curling into the cone-like knives that filled my mouth. My long willowy blond hair sucked into my scalp, and I began to grow…Bigger and bigger.

My face bulged out, and tapered to a point, like a lizard's face. I felt my tongue split inside my mouth, like a zipper being pulled down, it morphed into a massive forked tongue.

My vision shifted. It was poor, compared to human vision. I could see in the water around me, but I didn't hunt by sight.

My tongue flicked in and out of the water a few times. I ran it across a series of organs along the roof of my mouth, which quickly gave me a pretty clear picture of the water around me. Or more precisely, the animals in the water around me. The food. That was the important part.

My tongue told me that there were four others of my kind nearby. That could be a problem, if they horned in on my prey. But there was easier prey nearby. I had tasted it. I knew.

I sucked in a deep breath through the nostrils on the top of my snout, and filled my lungs. I then sealed my nostrils and dove under the water.

My body remained stiff like a board, as I quickly began to undulate my tail back and forth. The shark-like tail propelled me with incredible speed, my stiff upper body keeping me sleek and aerodynamic, allowing me to plow through the water with ease.

My four fin-like feet adjusted slightly, turning me in the water. I was mighty. I was the king of the ocean. And I was hungry.


	9. Deeper

Chapter Nine

I surged through the water, paddling my sharklike tail. I was hungry. My tongue flicked in and out of my mouth several times. The taste gave me a strong sense of where things were in the water. Particularly living things. It also gave me a sense of the currents and ambient water temperature.

It wasn't as refined or all-encompassing as the Spinosaurus's sense-receptors. In fact, comparatively, it was pretty basic. But functional. My tongue was to the Spinosaurus's sensitive snout what an ATV was to a Jaguar LX.

A large school of squiddy looking thing was down and to my left. They weren't like the ammonite I had acquired the other day. They had spiraling shells like a narwhal or unicorn horn, and were slimmer, sleeker.

I surged towards them with impressive speed. I opened my mouth and unhinged my jaw like a snake, opening it wide like a giant sieve in the water. I one swoop I swallowed as many ammonites as I could, and snapped my jaws shut. The mosasaurus ate it's food whole.

I noticed several other mosasaurs surging past me, gobbling up huge chunks of the ammonite school. This would not do. Too many of us in one territory would overtax the fish. I had to make them leave. I sent out a jet of bubbles into the water, and skimmed past a nearby mosasaur, trying to intimidate the others. It was a delicate dance. Not dangerous. Not usually, anyway, but important. Important to get the others to back down and claim this territory for myself. If I backed down, it might take me weeks to claim a new chunk of ocean.

That would not be fun. The choice spots were near the surface. Near the shoreline. Where I could snag smaller cephalopods and fish, or maybe the occasional shark. If I was lucky, a slow-moving or inattentive _hesperornis._

{Yowza!} Jason suddenly exclaimed in my head. Meaningless noise.

{Woah!} Emily said. {That's different.}

{These creatures are fiercely predatory and territorial, aren't they?} Menderash said.

{Guys,} Jason said as I circled close to another mosasaur and attempted to intimidate him. {I don't think Melissa's got control of her morph yet. She's still trying to intimidate us.}

{Yo!} Emily yelled in my head. {Melissa! Mels! Wake up! You are human!}

Human? Wait…I…

{Woah!} I snapped, and shook violently.

{Yeah,} Jason said. {It's intense. Not T-Rex intense, but intense.}

We all surfaced and exploded water out of our nostrils like some demonic whales.

{I guess Kronosaurs or whatever haven't got the cooperation thing going for them like modern dolphins or whales. No pods or packs for us,} Emily said.

{Maybe,} Jason said. {But some whales are solitary. Sperm Whales don't really do the pod thing. It may be like that for mosasaurs. We're kind of the cetacean ecological niche. Dolphins and whales filled that niche after the Cretaceous ended, but right now? It could be that the smaller mosasaurs pod. It's kinda hard to speculate given so little information. This ocean is gonna be as alien as an alien ocean to us, I think.}

{Why's that?} I asked.

{Ocean creatures seldom fossilize,} Jason replied ominously. {Fossilization is in and of itself an extremely rare process, but in the ocean? Virtually less than one percent of any given sea creature gets fossilized ever. Sea creatures don't sink to the bottom of the ocean when they die…They float to the surface, like dead fish. Float to the surface and get picked off by scavengers.}

{So you're saying…} Emily said.

{The mosasaurs, the plesiosaurs, the ammonites…These are the sea creatures we know about because we've been lucky enough to find fossilized specimens. Because of underwater volcanoes or mudslides or whatevers. Given the rarity of sea fossilization…}

{Anything could be in this ocean,} I said ominously. {Anything. It's an alien world out there as far removed from what we know as Leera or Andalia's oceans are.}

{_I _am familiar with Andalia's aquatic fauna, thank you very much,} Menderash said indignantly.

{You know what I mean,} I said. {We're in uncharted territory.}

{Here there be monsters,} Jason commented.

{We're the monsters,} Emily said. {Let's get a move on. I want to find the Pemalite base before the time limit hits in…?}

{Seven hours and 23 minutes,} Menderash said.

Thank God for small favors. Escafil's improvement of the Time Limit in morph was one of the greatest blessings of being a Dinomorph. It's a lot harder to get trapped in morph with a near eight-hour limit than with a two hour one. Not that I want to push my luck or anything.

Menderash had the mind of an Andalite, and so had a fairly good idea of where we were, and were we were going to follow Erica's instructions on how to get to where we were going. Jason had an adhesive device that Muk-Luk the Kelbrid had given him that would signal them when we arrived. The Chee and the Kebrid would then be able to join us.

{Senses are okay,} Jason commented. {The tongue thing is neat, but I wish they could echo-locate like dolphins and whales or electro-locate like platypuses or Yeerks. Those senses are way more refined. These senses are pretty dull, comparatively.}

{Beggers can't be choosers,} I said, though I was secretly wishing for the Spinosaurus/Alligator's sensitive snout, so really I hand no room to talk.

We sucked in a breath of air and began following Menderash. At least…I hoped it was Menderash. We'd all morphed the same mosasaur, so strictly speaking, we all looked alike.

I flicked my tongue in and out of my jaws often. Just to get a better sense of my world. It's hard to describe navigating an underwater environment based on taste. Sort of like…Walking down a dark hallway late at night. You have a pretty good idea of where the hallway is, and can vaguely see things in the dark, but you could still be surprised by that Lego in front of the bathroom door.

{Woah,} Emily said, suddenly. {That's a big shark.}

{Megalodon,} Jason said. {He ruled the seas, in ancient times. He's the template for the modern shark. The original Jaws. Just bigger. Sharks haven't changed all that much since ancient times.}

{He looks like lunch to my Kronosaur brain,} I said.

{Yeah,} Jason said. {I noticed that too. He's almost as big as we are, and he's clearly leery of us. I'm guessing there's a sperm whale/giant squid dynamic here. Give either party half a chance and the other party is dinner. I think the fact that there's four of us is making him nervous.}

It was true. The enormous Mega-Shark, or Megalodon as I now knew it was called, was giving us a massive berth as we glided through the ocean. I realized that my eyes were actually a good supplement to my tongue. Giving me information my tongue could not. Sort of like how ears are a supplement to eyes on a human, giving you information the other sense couldn't give you.

Humans are a visually based species. But mosasaurs were a taste-based species. I wondered vaguely what Menderash thought of this morph, given the relationship between Andalites and the sense of taste.

{We are here,} Menderash announced. I was surprised. My tongue flicked out a few times and tasted metal beneath us. We surfaced and exhaled, before sucking in a fresh breath of air, and dove.

{I think we've got like, 40 minutes of air,} Jason said. {Which is good, because we're about to go deep.}

{The morph does not like that idea,} Emily said.

{Yeah,} I agreed. {It prefers to skim the surface for food. Kinda makes me nervous. What's in the deep water that turns it off so much?}

Nobody answered my question.

We dove deeper and deeper. The deeper we dove, the more uncomfortable the mosasaur mind got. The pressure wasn't the problem, thankfully. The mosasaur seemed to be able to adjust for that. But the deep water was dark (and the sun was setting on the surface, making it darker still.)

{Maybe this was a bad idea,} Jason said. {Maybe we need gills. Like you said…We're surface skimmers. Maybe we should gang up on that Megalodon and acquire him…}

{No,} I said, interrupting. {We've already come this far. Besides, that's not really a fight I'd relish getting into, you know? Even if we can take him he's gonna get some licks in. The best plan is—,}

I was interrupted by the ocean floor suddenly become flooded with bright light.

{What on earth?} Jason said.

A series of floodlights on the bottom of the ocean had suddenly come on, and were now illuminating two massive domes. One was smaller, maybe the size of an Andalite dome ship's dome? The other was about eight times as big. Could have been Manhattan, given it's size.

{We are not on earth,} Menderash pointed out.

{Point,} Jason said. {"What on Jurassic Planet" then.}

{We're not calling it that, are we?} I said. {Because that's a lame name for a planet.}

{_I _liked it,} Jason said, sounding deflated.

{Emily came up with it, didn't she?} I said to him in private thought-speak.

{It was…Apt,} he responded publicly. {It's a planet where dinosaurs were cloned. Like…Jurassic Park.}

{The planets in our solar system were named after Roman gods,} Emily pointed out, clearly not put-off that we were dissing her name. {We could do that. Diana, the goddess of the Hunt. Minerva, the goddess of Wisdom. Bellona, the goddess of war. Juno the-}

{I don't know,} I said. {Those are for planets in our own solar system. We're a long way from the pale blue dot, right now. I do like the idea of Latin though. That's what scientists are always using right? Cuz it's a dead language, and doesn't change. I don't speak Latin though…}

{I took a Latin class sophmore year of high school,} Jason admitted. {How about…_Terra Nova_? It means "New Earth" or "New Land". Seems pretty appropriate for this place.}

{I like it,} Emily said. {Sounds so cool and official and stuff.}

{It does not suck,} I admitted.

Menderash did the thought-speak equivalent of clearing his throat.

{I do not mean to interrupt something so vitally important and _human_ as naming a planet. But…There is a massive dome beneath us that we should investigate? The Pemalite base, correct?}

{Is it?} Jason wondered. {The Pemalite base is supposed to be underground. This thing is not.}

{We should surface and get some air,} I said. {My lungs are starting to burn.}

{Agreed,} Jason said as we began scooting towards the shimmering roof of our underwater world. We surfaced as quickly as we could, expelling the bad air, and sucking in an extra large breath of fresh air, before diving back down again.

{The little dome looks kind of like…An airlock of the big city-sized dome?} I said, casually as we reached the bottom of the Terra Novan ocean once again.

{Let's check it out,} Jason said. We swam closer to the dome…Which suddenly opened up for us. The top just suddenly slid open. Parting like an eyelid opening. The dome itself was empty, but there was room in there for four mosasaurs easily.

We swam into the dome.

{You know,} I said. {This seems almost…Trappish…}

{Not a word,} Jason commented.

As if in response the dome suddenly slammed shut above us.

{Oh shit!} I exclaimed. {We're going to drown!}

{I don't think so,} Emily said. {Hear that sound? It's like…Water going down the drain. Or being pumped out. I think it IS an airlock.}

{How did it know that we wanted in?} Menderash wondered ominously.

{If the water is draining,} I asked. {Why am I still surrounded on all sides by water?}

{I…Don't know,} Emily admitted. I began to propel my tail forward. Suddenly my nostrils breached the surface of the water, and I instinctively expelled my bad air in exchange for good air. The first thing I noticed was how stale the air tasted…The second was the more reasonable _wait what_ reaction.

My nostrils had breached the surface of the water…Sideways. When I had propelled forward, my nose had stuck out of the water.

I was in a floating bubble of water.

{Wait…} Jason said out loud having made the same discovery.

{It moves with you,} I said, propelling my bubble forward as I swished my tail. {It let's you stick your nose out to breathe, but the bubble moves when you do.}

{This is so bizarre,} Emily said. {But also cool.}

{I bet we could demorph,} Jason said. {Just morph back to human and walk right out of the bubbles.}

{I think so as well,} Menderash said.

I swam my bubble towards the ground and rested there, before focusing on my human shape. I stuck my nose out of my hydro-sphere and as I shrank I began to stick more and more of me out. By the time I was finished, I was fully human, and fully out of the bubble, which retained its bubble shape without me.

The others had not demorphed on ground-level, and so were now jumping out of their bubbles and landing on the ground. Menderash tumbled over while Jason and Emily landed nimbly; cat-like.

We helped the former Andalite to his feet.

"T-thank you," he said. "A year with this body, and I am still unaccustomed to just two legs."

"We're dry," Emily commented, poking my bubble. "All the water stayed inside these."

"Definite weirdness factor," Jason said, turning towards the underwater tube that connected this airlock to the main dome. We noticed a mag-lev cart, like a little flat roller coaster car, sitting on a track by the entrance.

We climbed onto the cart, and it was off like a shot, through the tube that was clearly once transparent, but now had sea-crud crusted all over it. We could occasionally see out of the tube, but mostly it was a dark spooky tunnel. Not that it wasn't spooky when we COULD see out. A squid three times the size of the mosasaur morph passed overhead, chasing ammonites the size of semi-truck cabs.

Once inside the mega dome, we could see a number of massive buildings everywhere, like skyscrapers. Like New York, except much, MUCH quieter.

And instead of the Empire State Building, in the center of the city, was a tall, green structure, shaped like Snoopy.

"Pemalite architecture!" I said pointing at the building. The Mag-Lev cart seemed destined for the building as well, as the tracks ran straight up into the back of Snoopy's head.

Two minutes later the cart arrived, and we stepped off of it. As soon as our bare feet hit the floor, a bunch of lights illuminated the room, and a series of holographic images came on.

Bipedal dog-like aliens were the majority of the images that had appeared. But also there were several multi-colored crab-like aliens in the holograms. With large three-way pinchers on one side, and two Andalite-like arms on the other.

But neither of those holographic images were what floored us. Dead center, in the middle of the room, was a hologram of two humans, looking happy and contented, and though they were clearly a few years older than we were now, they were very clearly identifiable humans.

"Jason," I said. "Emily."

We stared at the hologram. Jason and Emily were in far too much shock to speak.

"Why is your wedding picture…Wedding…Hologram…In the middle of this room?"


	10. Lost and Found

Chapter Ten

We stared at the hologram for several minutes. Jason and Emily, each just a little bit older, dressed up nice for their wedding. Jason was wearing a black tux, while Emily was wearing a gorgeous white wedding dress with a red sash.

"What am I looking at here?" Jason demanded. "We just…we just started seeing each other."

"You did say that you wanted to marry me," Emily commented.

"Yes," Jason said. "I do…I very much do…But I was assuming that the relationship would progress towards that naturally, and I would propose in a year or two…Not…WHAT AM I LOOKING AT!?"

"What's with the red sash?" I asked curiously.

"Oh…" Emily said, quietly. "Um…that's Chinese custom. Western women wear white on their weddings…Chinese women are supposed to wear red. I'm only half-Chinese, so…I would likely do both. My mom did."

"I do not understand," Menderash said.

"It's a wedding photo," I said. "A snapshot of Jason and Emily's wedding."

"Yes," he snapped irritatedly. "I understand that. What I cannot comprehend is its existence. How can such a thing exist? _Here_ in an ancient underwater city that has been untouched for centuries."

Emily sucked in a breath. "I have a theory. It's a little out-there…But…It kinda covers everything."

"I'm all ears," I said, and the boys nodded in agreement.

"Time travel," Emily said quietly. We were silent, so she went on.

"85 million years separate the Tyrannosaurus and the Stegosaurus. That's more time than separates us from the Big Rex," she said. "That is an unfathomable amount of time. So…Either whoever made this place is extremely long-lived and patient…Or…Someone went back in time, and collected the DNA samples of all these dinosaurs…From multiple eras…And then brought them to about 5,000 B.C., and cloned them while terraforming this planet."

Jason turned and looked at Menderash.

"Is it possible?" he asked.

"A _Sario Rip_ is a hole in the fabric of space-time," Menderash said. "It can cover any amount of time when it occurs. But it is random. One cannot control where one is going unless you are already within a Rip. And even then, it is extremely difficult. What you are talking about is…Controlled time travel to multiple distinct points in time."

"But it _is_ possible to travel through time," Jason said.

"Not in the way you are describing," Menderash said. "Going directly from one point in time to another, on purpose…The technology simply does not exist."

"Yet," I commented.

Menderash stopped short.

"The technology doesn't exist, _yet,_" I said. "But since it is _Time_ travel we're talking about here, it may exist in the future…Which means its presence in the past is ensured, because it already happened."

"I have a headache," Jason said.

"Look," Emily said. "I don't know the _how, _or the _why._ But I am positive that we're looking at time travel here. It's why Jason and I have authorized DNA patterns and no one else does. They were authorized for us centuries ago. Because versions of us also somehow went back in time."

I glanced at the wedding photo. A possible glimmer of Jason and Emily's future?

"It's one of two options," Emily continued. "Option one. We are living in an altered timeline. Everything happened the same as it did here, but when we got to the Pemalite planet, it was…Broken, or covered in Taxxons or something, so our other selves went back in time, and set this up, so that the planet would be here waiting for us when we got here. Full of One-Disease proof dinosaurs."

"I could kind of see that," I said. "But why just you two? Why did alternate timeline Jason and Emily leave behind AltMelissa and AltMenderash?"

"Maybe it was an accident or something, I don't know," Emily said. "Or it's option two. Which is the scarier option, FYI."

"What's option two?" I asked.

"It hasn't happened yet," Emily said. "Sometime in the future, Jason and I wind up getting pulled back in time, and help set this planet up. The past is our future."

"Why is that the scarier option?" I asked.

"Because it hasn't happened yet," Emily said. "What if we're destined to find the Delorean or something, and then go back, but we get stepped on by a Rex first or something. An accident or something. Suddenly…Poof…This place never existed, because we never had the chance to go back in time and make it."

"Fairly certain time travel doesn't work that way," Jason said.

"Not unless there are two of you in one time," Menderash said.

"Point is there's also a 'you can't fight fate' aspect to it that makes me uncomfortable too," Emily said.

"This is too complex to wrap my brain around," I said.

{I have accessed this computer terminal,} Menderash said. {It is highly corroded. I doubt that there will be useful information.}

"I signaled Muk-Luk," Jason said.

I paced to the far end of the room, but I couldn't take my eyes off the hologram of Jason and Emily, who seemed to be off on their own having a quiet conversation.

I was disturbed by the hologram, I could only imagine what the two of them were feeling. Being confronted with your own potential future.

Or was it an alternate timeline? Did we originally come to this planet, looking for the Pemalite cure-all, but found nothing? And then…I don't know…Set up a _Sario Rip _to go back in time and set this planet up for our future selves…Us…To find?

I clutched my head. The more we discovered about the planet, the more mysteries seemed to pile on.

"I have so many questions," I said out loud. "And no goddamn answers."

{I know the feeling,} Menderash said. {This world is a mystery on par with the fate of the Tharkanian Empire or the lost ship _Tigerion._}

"What are those?" Jason asked.

"The Tharkanian Empire," Menderash said. "Is believed to be the earliest known interplanetary empire in our galaxy. It fell into decline millions of years before any of the modern civilizations developed. No one knows where their homeworld was located, either, nor why it fell."

"Oh," Jason responded.

"The _Tigerion _was an Andalite exploratory science vessel that vanished at the beginning of the Earth Twentieth Century," Menderash said. "Its disappearance has always baffled Andalite historians. Like your Roanoak colony or sea vessel _Mary Celeste._"

Suddenly, Menderash yelped in thought-speak.

{Ah-HA!} he said.

A holographic image of one of the multi-colored crabs appeared in front of his console, and a new Thought-Speak voice began echoing in our heads.

{To facilitate the project, and complete the circuit,} the voice said. {With aid of our vegetables, the Pemalites have begun producing thousands of metric tons of their compound. It will be used as the embryonic fluid in the cloning facilities, and as such will be passed down generational-}

The thought-speak voice fizzled out, and the hologram died.

"Wait," Jason said. "What?"

The four of us exchanged a glance.

"The clones are suspended in that clear bluish-green liquid," I said.

"Which is the compound we came here for?" Jason said.

"This is nuts," I commented. Suddenly, the city shook.

"What was that?" Jason asked.

"Menderash?" I asked, looking out a window at the large dome over the city. "Is that dome glass?"

{Nonsense,} He huffed. {Glass would not last the centuries of holding back the ocean pressure. It is likely a Ramonite-Plastic compound that-}

CRACK.

A large crack was suddenly spreading across the dome.

"Well that fills me with comfort," Jason said.

The crack spread, and suddenly, a stream of water was suddenly pouring into the city from the crack. It was a few miles away from us, but it was clearly there.

{We are losing structural integrity,} Menderash said, sounding slightly less panicked than I felt.

"Maybe we should mag-lev back to the airlock," Jason said calmly. We piled into the train, which began to hover along the track for a few hundred feet, and then stopped abruptly.

"I think age has finally caught up with this place," Emily said.

"Our presence here may have exacerbated the problems the city was already experiencing," Menderash offered.

CRACK. FSSSSSSSSSSSSST! Another stream of water began to pour into the city.

"Just morph!" I yelled. "The water is going to be filling this little fishbowl up in minutes…Morph the mosasaurs!"

Following my own advice, I concentrated on the sea-reptile DNA within me, and began to expand. My fingers melting together, my jaw bulging out…The train was rapidly becoming too small for the four of us, so we jumped out…into icy cold water that was rapidly rising in the city.

My teeth chattered wildly, but I kept my concentration on the morph. I grew, and grew, and sprouted fins, and a shark-like tail, and just when I finished morphing, I heard the heart-stopping sound of the glass, or whatever it was above us, shattering.

Water rushed in everywhere. The mosasaur instinctively sucked in a deep breath, and we found ourselves battered against the buildings as waved of water and currents came crashing in.

Slightly disoriented I began to swim towards the surface. Up and out through the dome, which really wasn't a dome any more, and further up and up, and I broke the surface, the night sky glittering above us, half covered in a massive gold and blue nebula.

Three more Kronosaurs surged out of the water behind me.

I glanced over to my left, and began laughing uncontrollably.

{Something funny, Melissa?} Jason asked.

I rolled over onto my side and pointed a stiff flipper at the small island to the left of us.

{That's where I lived for the first two months before the plesiosaur came up and laid it's eggs. We just came full circle.}

{Well,} Jason said, glancing at the island. {It's been a long and weird day…Anyone up for a beach party?}

{That,} I said. {Sounds FAN-TAS-TIC}


End file.
